#its like hazardous or radioactive waste

[foxpunk]

oh don't do that. don't give me the banter dialogue option. don't give me that cause i Will pick it and then i'll be bantering with emet-selch and its gonna be all downhill from there i just know it

[dawn-moths]

I’m curious how your “a storm pairs well with a cerulean gaze” au touya would be with #s 3, 7, 19, and 50 if its not too much??

hi hi!! (˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶)

i’d be happy to do those for you, you know that au is one of my favorites heehee~

3. Do they enjoy cooking?

i think, before touya met you, he never cooked. he ordered cheap takeout or picked something up from the local konbini. however, once you two start living together, you start teaching him. he shows an interest one morning when you’re making breakfast, and even though it’s just some simple scrambled eggs and toast, he genuinely has no idea where to start.

maybe, once upon a time, he would have. somewhere in a distant childhood where his mother would've stayed around to help him learn. but those memories have always been few and far between. he's trained himself not to look back.

“c’mon, touya,” you tease him with a look that says you’re not buying it. “you don’t actually expect me to believe you’ve never made scrambled eggs and toast before, do you?”

touya goes quiet, hides his insecurity behind the subtle clenching of his jaw.

he hopes you miss it, but you know him better than that so you don’t.

“touya,” you say, more firmly this time, as you set down the spatula and turn off the burner, little blue flames dying down under the pan. “i mean— really?”

you don’t want to sound like you’re judging him but, well, it’s just he’s always seemed so capable to you. like he could do anything. figure out any problem.

“alright...” you sigh, though it sounds sort of dreamy, like this new information you’re learning about him is endearing to some degree. “come here and i’ll teach you.”

how often did you get to be the one to teach him something? you weren’t going to waste this rare moment.

so, for the next week, the two of you learn to like eating scrambled eggs and toast every morning, though you go through several more cartons of eggs than you normally would on account of most of touya’s early attempts turning out completely inedible and having to be thrown away.

he also nearly starts a fire by turning the toaster up too high, but you promised him you wouldn’t tease him about it after he got upset when you wouldn’t stop laughing. you know. right before you were thrown into a fit of panic when the smoke alarms started going off and you rushed to open a window while he quickly tossed the charred, petrified piece of bread into the sink and under a rush of cold water.

but, lucky for the two of you, touya is a fast learner. once he gets it right, he pretty much has it perfected. he starts taking pride in his new skill, takes on the task of making you both breakfast whereas it used to be your job in the past.

and it’s nice and all but pretty soon you have to start adding new recipes to his repertoire lest you grow to resent scrambled eggs and toast on the principle of eating it most days of the week.

you pat his hand in the middle of the table before lightly intertwining your fingers. “why don’t i teach you some good smoothie recipes next?” you ask as you watch him take another bite of his eggs, the food turned radioactive orange on account of how much hot sauce he’s drenched it in.

touya gives you a sly crack of a smirk, replying once he’s swallowed his bite, “why?” he asks. “tired of me setting the fire alarms off?”

you giggle and take another bite of your toast, the crispy bread holding the perfect amount of crunch.

“i’d teach you omelettes,” you say with a shrug, “but we might get evicted on fire hazard charges before you have time to get it down right.”

touya nudges your foot from under the table, flashes you that embarrassed grin you’ve come to love so much.

“shut up,” he teases. though, deep down, he knows you’re probably right.

7. Do they have any unusual fears?

hmmm… honestly i had to think about this for a long time and i think it probably takes a lot to scare him. i’d say his biggest fear preceeding his encounter with you would probably be that he’d end up living his whole life under someone else’s (in this case tomura’s) control, since he escaped one abusive/controlling situation (his father) and landed immediately in another one. but once you’ve entered his life, his biggest fear becomes losing you or having your well being threatened.

i also think there are still some underlying trauma-based fears from his childhood that can come out at unexpected times as well.

i guess i can't really see him having any small or "unusual" fears though. he's already faced so many terrifying things in his life. his own experiences have made most common phobias feel like child's play to him. if you have a fear though, he'll try and do anything in his power to make sure you won't have to encounter it, and if you do, he'll be there to hold your hand along the way.

19. How easy is it to become their friend?

i think touya is always very guarded, so making new friends is incredibly hard for him, but once someone becomes his friend, it’s probably going to be ride or die. needless to say, he has very few people like this in his life. you’re the person he considers his closest friend and for a long time, once you two move into your apartment and start your new lives together, you’re probably his only friend (especially since whoever he might've hung out with back at tomura's place he'd now consider cut off from given he doesn't want to risk getting involved with his old life again or having you pulled into trouble by association). but you have your own close friends you like to hang out with, so touya ends up finding himself having a little more alone time than he’d like.

i think he’d have one co-worker that he ends up really liking (let’s imagine it’s Jin, in this case) and just vibes with while he's at work. one thing leads to another and pretty soon he finds himself meeting him for drinks one night when he knows you're going out with some of your friends. when he finds himself leaning more into this new friendship and maybe even opening up about parts of himself he normally doesn’t let anyone aside from you see, he gets freaked out. but maybe this comes up in conversation between you two and you explain to him that all the best relationships contain vulnerability. this is a hard pill for him to swallow, but deep down he knows you’re right.

touya learns how to become a better friend as well as navigate and maintain new relationships because of you.

though, he’s still probably a little reluctant to let his new friends meet you, especially if they’re guys. he can try and hide that jealous side he has from you all he likes. he’ll never be able to deny it from himself though.

50. What is your favorite thing about them?

ooooooh gosh this is soooo hard!

well, i think the root of what caused this au to form was wanting to feel comforted and protected no matter what (i was going through a super hard time when i originally wrote it and was really needing/craving those things at that time so).

touya is nothing if not protective over you, but it’s not to the point where it’s suffocating either. he worries about you whenever you’re not together but it’s mostly a burden he takes on privately. he doesn’t try to guilt or manipulate you into being with him 24/7 or creating an environment of some sort of fear mongering either (which i’ve personally experienced in some of my past relationships and is a major red flag for me now.)

but touya can also be fun, in his own mischievous, twisted little ways. he can be playful, especially once you two have established a good foundation of trust with one another and he feels he can open up a little more. he likes to surprise you in all sorts of little ways. anything to make you smile. because it’s your smile and your laugh and knowing that he was the one that evoked that reaction from you that heals him more and more each time it happens.

send me a character i write for + a prompt from this list ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

[dailyanarchistposts]

Fusion is No Solution: An antidote to the usual, incredible hype

Alternative technology tends to be sold as small / human scale and so decentralisable and autonomous until such time as the ‘powers-that-be’ actually take it seriously, at which point it becomes a mega-project under centralised expert control. Witness wind power spawning huge 100m high wind farms, with wave power next to get the same treatment — and it’s typically those pushing such energy generation as ‘alternatives’ that get to be the experts ‘benevolently’ imposing them as soon as the government money starts to come in.

No one could pretend fusion is anything but hi-tech, highly centralised, highly expertise-dependant and demanding huge injections of funding and power, but some still believe it is somehow “clean” and can yield massive amounts of energy, like the old ‘Atoms for Peace’ / ‘too cheap to meter’ codswallop they used to sell us fission back in the 1950s. Needless to say, this is the opposite of the truth.

First off, the isotopes of hydrogen smashed together at super-hot (plasma) temperatures are radioactive. Sure enough, deuterium only has a half-life of 12 years — one reason why its use as a ‘doping agent’ in US nuclear weapons has quietly rendered most of them obselete — but the free neutrons generated by this process often impact the torus’s cladding and not the hydrogen fuel, which really is a long-term waste disposal problem.

Secondly, as well as being radioactive, tritium can cause cancer, birth defects and other such problems. Dealing with tritium emissions incidental to conventional fission reactors, the Conception Group discovered a Health & Welfare Canada (HWC) report admitting: [5]

a ‘statistically significant’ correlation of central nervous system (CNS) birth defects with large releases of tritium to air: five Pickering infants with CNS defects (anencephaly, microcephaly, spina bifida with hydrocephalus, and two others whose defect code was not on record) were born in January-July 1978, following the airborne tritium releases of April-October 1977. Medical experts link CNS birth defects to radiation exposure, as found after the atomic bombing of Japan.

Fusion researchers concede this is a problem, but claim they only need a small amount of tritium to initiate neutron emission from the deuterium. Engineers admit, however, that “a tritium inventory of 40 kg” as the minimum required to ensure viability.

Thirdly, as hydrogen is such a small molecule, virtually anything is porous to it, making containment much, much more difficult than for fissionable materials. Hydrogen is highly explosive (witness the Hindenberg!) and will be used in combination with super-high temperatures, making plant safety a big issue. One nuclear engineer frankly stated: [6]

“I would be a lot more concerned about a Tritium fire twenty miles away than a meltdown at a fission plant”. There are also likely to be day-to-day hazards caused by the intense electromagnetic forces used to keep the hydrogen plasma off the torus wall, likely affecting workers’ reproductive and central nervous systems and potentially causing leukaemia, if typical of other nonionizing radiation hazards. The same spectacle as occurred at Sellafield — where workers there were warned not to have children — is likely to occur at any future viable fusion plant.

Fourthly, as noted already, both tritium and deuterium are key components of nuclear weapons — indeed, it was Lawrence Livermore’s Edward Teller (a.k.a. ‘Doctor Strangelove’) that first promoted them in the form of the hydrogen bomb, while he was still at Los Alamos — and so represents a proliferation risk, with all the ‘security state’ ramifications of that. So much for ‘fusion for peace’, not that anyone has ever pretended anything so patently stupid — and as Karl Jung argued against fission in his Nuclear State three decades ago, a nuclear state is inevitably ultimately also a totalitarian state.

Fifthly, fusion is mega-science feeding a Promethian mega-science mentality, with huge resources diverted into keeping such experts on the hitech gravy train. The CANDU torus (also known as ITEC) cost the Canadian government £14 billion when established in 1992. It is a pure research facility which will never generate a watt of electricity for nonresearch use and, typical of those that have had a living gifted to them, all objections by citizen groups such as Sierra Club Canada have so far arrogantly been waved aside.

Finally, despite the industry hype we’d all be on fusion power by 1980, not a watt of electricity has been generated by fusion for research purposes as well as for non-research ones. Nuclear engineers admit: [7]

The biggest issue facing DT is the actual breeding of the tritium in the Lithium blanket. It is not a simple problem and may be the death of DT fusion if no practical way of efficiently breeding the tritium and harvesting it quickly without having even minimal losses. This is the part that is the most pessimistic, in my opinion.

In other words, that fusion has always been complete hype and that they may never get it working at all. In this, it certainly is fission+, where at least it was only the safe disposal of the waste they hadn’t figured out before spinning stories to suck the public purse dry.

[thirdchoiceurl]

Oh cool whats NAA? Also I've heard of using neutrons to treat nuclear waste, but I was never able to find any recent papers on it? Or maybe I wasn't using the correct search terms.

NAA stands for Neutron Activation Analysis. There’s a few varieties, but in our lab we typically do Delayed Gamma Neutron Activation Analysis or DGNAA. We bombard samples with a strong flux of thermal neutrons from the reactor, and the neutrons are absorbed by all manner of atoms in the material. In doing so, the stable nuclei are transmuted into short-lived radioisotopes that then decay via beta emission and emit gamma photons with characteristic energies. By using a scintillator and photomultiplier with an MCA (or the HPGe setup if it’s available (it never is) and we have the nitrogen (we never do)), we can then build a gamma ray spectrum that tells us exactly which trace elements are in the sample and, through cross-section analysis, we can get good measures of exactly how much of each element is present.

It’s an incredibly powerful tool for detecting and characterizing trace elements, with sensitivity several thousand times beyond purely chemical methods. One of the recent experiments we did analysis for involved mapping ancient trade routes in Central America by using pottery shards to identify the characteristic minerals of specific clay deposits and correlating them with how far they had traveled from their origin point. The amount of information that can be found from the atomic fingerprint of an object is astounding.

My pet project (the “refried beans” theory of nuclear waste as some of my buddies call it) is typically referred to as waste transmutation. High-level nuclear waste is produced from the processing of spent fuel, which is laden with highly radioactive fission products that pose a serious danger to anyone who may carelessly handle it in the present or future. While many of these fission products are short-lived and decay almost completely while the fuel waits in the cooling pool of its reactor, some isotopes (especially Caesium-137 and Strontium-90) have half-lives in the range of decades and product abundance above 5%. These nuclides are in the sour spot of maximum danger, with half-lives short enough to be ferociously radioactive even in tiny quantities and long enough that one can’t simply wait for them to decay significantly in a human lifetime.

My project, which is currently a bunch of spreadsheets and slideshows I use to try to convince someone to let me mess around with some highly corrosive extremely radioactive nitric acid salts, involves intercepting the fission product waste after reprocessing separates out the industrially useful heavy radioactinides and placing that waste back into the neutron flux of a reactor or accelerator. In doing so, preliminary simulations show that significant portions of the long-term waste activity can be reduced as the hardy and problematic long-lived isotopes are transmuted into short-lived ephemeral products that decay into stable nuclei in a matter of days rather than centuries.

This process isn’t without its drawbacks and hazards. Waste to be transmuted must be carefully chemically treated to remove elements like Calcium or Chlorine which can absorb neutrons from the beam and become new nuclear waste. Another issue is that the transmutation process makes the waste drastically more radioactive for a brief period of time. No fission product exists can be transmuted directly into a stable isotope, we can only pre-empt their decay. In time, the refried waste and the untreated waste will release the exact same quantity of radiation, and forcing it to undergo centuries’ worth of decay in a matter of weeks will make it extremely hot both physically and metaphorically.

It’s a work in progress.

[dzthenerd490]

File: Adventure Time - The Lich

SCP#: AHG

Code Name: The Lich: God of Death, Destruction, Monsters, and Oblivion/ 353rd Child of the Distortion.

Object Class: Keter

Special Containment Procedures: Due to being an K Class Apocalyptic Hazard Anomaly that can't be contained by normal or even experimental means SCP-AHG has been contained at Site-AR. He is contained within a large block of amber mixed with trace metals such as Telekill and other anomalous metals that suppress SCP-AHG's anomalous properties. The Amber's outer layer is also engraved with thaumaturgic symbols that prevent the amber from taking any damage in its current form. This amber is stored within a 20x20 meter containment cell, the walls of the containment cell are pasted with paper talisman that work well with sealing the influence of demons, dark spirits, entities of the Abyss, and other paranormal entities. For obvious reasons, there is no testing allowed on SCP-AHG. 

In the event of a containment breach Mobile Task Force Hecate-Alpha "Real Magic" Division: Sorcerer's Staff are to mobilize to SCP-AHG's containment room at once. If possible one or two members of Division: Oracle's Third Eye are to guard SCP-AHG's cell as well. If SCP-AHG somehow breaks containment, Mobile Task Force Hephaestus-1 “Legion Crafters” has full jurisdiction to reestablish containment or if deemed necessary, neutralize SCP-AHG. They are free to use any experimental methods or technology to deal with an anomalous threat such as SCP-AHG.

Description: SCP-AHG is an undead being that takes on the form of a large skeletal monster with curled horns on its head. Despite being nothing but bones SCP-AHG is perfectly capable of speech, utilize the five basic sense, and can move normally while also being strong enough to break steel with his hand. SCP-AHG also possesses an abundance of anomalous properties including: the ability to command others with his voice, rotting corruption touch, manifestation of cold like death fire, the ability to destroy anything through touch alone, the ability to raise and command the dead, and the ability to corrupt any living organism into his slave.

SCP-AHG is always strong but naturally grows stronger when around nuclear and radioactive waste. It is theorized that nuclear waste makes SCP-AHG makes him stronger because it's a negative aspect of reality something that brings destruction and death generally. As such anything that can bring death and is highly toxic is considered a life source to SCP-AHG. If true, this implies that anything that brings life or extends life such as SCP-006 can be highly toxic to SCP-AHG. Though there is currently no way to test this theory as doing so would require us to release SCP-AHG first. 

SCP-AHG was discovered in 1945 during the testing of the first atomic bomb at [data expunged], New Mexico. After the bomb was ignited SCP-AHG rose up from the ground and created an army of anomalous monsters made of the earth and the nuclear fire and waist resulting from the explosion. PENTAGRAM forces in the area did their best to fight off SCP-AHG but were ultimately unsuccessful. The SCP Foundation, the Horizon Initiative, and the Eight Wings of Mekhane were a part of the Global Paranormal Control Alliance and thus took it upon themselves to combine their resources and stop SCP-AHG. Eventually they were successful but at extremely heavy cost of at least [data expunged] casualties. It was unknown if SCP-AHG could be killed so it was instead contained and given to the SCP Foundation to be locked away forever. During its first containment SCP-AHG showed it was capable of speech and actually had a conversation with O5-[data expunged]. Please see Addendum X-50 for details.  

***

Addendum X-50

The following is a written transcript of what was said between O5-[data expunged] and SCP-AHG during its first containment.

***

O5-[data expunged]: Can you hear me? 

SCP-AHG: ... Yes, I can hear you mortal.

O5-[data expunged]: Interesting, what exactly are you?

SCP-AHG: I am death, destruction, oblivion, the end to all, the creator of the abyss.

O5-[data expunged]: Bold words, do you know what created you?

SCP-AHG: Not the bomb if that's what you're thinking.

O5-[data expunged]: I... Wait what? The atomic bomb didn't create you?

SCP-AHG: No, it merely woke me from my slumber, it was a... delicious meal to say the least.

O5-[data expunged]: So if your not a mutant created by the radiation and [data expunged by order of the O5 Council] then what the hell created you?

SCP-AHG: I was born long before time existed, before there was even anything... there was nothing, but even before that. THERE WERE MONSTERS. These beings were everything and simultaneously nothing. We were the original balance but now, there is creation and with-it chaos. 

O5-[data expunged]: Oh my god, are you one of the ancients?

SCP-AHG: No, not entirely... But I am their liberator. Soon I will bring about a destruction so great it will wipe out every star in the sky, mortal. Then... Then it will be YOU and all other children of creation that are the forgotten memories. 

O5-[data expunged]: We'll see about that.

***

Later on in 2010, SCP-AGO was sighted at SCP-AHG's containment area touching the amber. Mobile Task Force Epsilon-11 "Nine-Tailed Fox" was deployed but instead the Distortion surrendered and offered to explain more about SCP-AHG. This led to an interview with Site Director Wyllt and SCP-AGO, please see Addendum X-51 for details. 

***

Addendum X-51

The following is a quick recording of Site Director Wyllt interviewing SCP-AGO on his surprise visit. 

***

Begin Recording

Site Director Wyllt: What the hell do you want SCP-AGO?

SCP-AGO: 1 4M 7H3 D1S70R710N 4ND 1 D3M4ND 7O B3 C4LL3D 5UCH.

Site Director Wyllt: I don't care for what you demand I care for why you are here and what you want with SCP-AHG. 

SCP-AGO: 7CH, 5CP FUCK5... W3LL WH473V3R 4NYW4Y5 1 W45 M3R3LY V13W1NG 7H3 R35UL75 0F MY W0RK.

Site Director Wyllt: ... SCP-AHG is one of your sons?

SCP-AGO: CH1LDR3N S173 D1R3C70R, 17'5 N07 N1C3 70 A55UM3 G3ND3R, N0W 15 17?

Site Director Wyllt: Whatever, the point is you created SCP-AHG, but how? It claims to have existed before the beginning of time when there were only the ancient gods. Did it lie?

SCP-AGO: ... N0, WH3N 1 CR3473D MY G0D 3GG5 1 D1DN'7 JU57 S3ND 7H3M 4LL 7R0UGH 0U7 5PAC3 BU7 7HR0UH D1FF3R3N7 71M35, R34L17135, 4ND D1M3N510NS 45 W3LL. 1 D1D 50 B3C4AS3 1 W4N73D 4 L177L3 B17 0F 3V3RY7H1NG 70 C0N7R1BU73 70 34CH 0F 7H31R GR0W7H. 17'5 P3RF3C7LY P0551BL3 F0R 0N3 0R 7W0 70 3X157 B3F0R3 3V3N 71M3.

Site Director Wyllt: I see, so let me guess. You're going to devour him now?

 SCP-AGO: H4H4H4H4H4, N0, H3'5 GR0WN QU173 57R0NG N0W BU7 7H3R3'5 4LW4Y5 R00M F0R 1MPR0V3M3N7, 1 GU355 F0R N0W 1'LL JU57 W417 4ND 533 WH47 W1LL H4PP3N.

Site Director Wyllt: You're a fool if you think he's ever going to escape. 

SCP-AGO: H3H3H3, W3 B07H KN0W N07H1NG C4N B3 C0NT41N3D F0R3V3R, T1M3 W1LL 4LW4Y5 B3 0N 7H3 S1D3 0F 7H3 G0D5.

SCP-AGO suddenly vanished not leaving a single trace of his existence.

 Site Director Wyllt: ... Tch, Chaos God bastard.

Recording Ends

***

The O5 Council were later notified of SCP-AGO's involvement with SCP-AHG. It was then agreed that Division: Oracle's Third Eye of MTF Hecta-A will be involved with securing SCP-AHG's containment and if SCP-AGO ever appears again. This will also be the case if Group of Interest: The Black Queen's Insurgency ever attacks Site-AR as they are well known backers of SCP-AGO. 

.

SCP: Horror Movie Files Hub

[denimbex1986]

'Made for an estimated, fairly astronomical, $180 million, the high-impact biopic has grossed almost one billion dollars globally, at least partially propelled by its unlikely provenance as one-half of the Barbenheimer theatrical dynamic duo. But now that the dust has cleared, discerning spectators are better able to detect creeping critical fallout amid all the ticker-tape praise. How much of Oppenheimer’s figures is a factual biography of legendary U.S. physicist Julius Robert Oppenheimer, and how much is sneaky, bio-hazardous radioactive waste dropped on an unsuspecting public?

Oppenheimer: From Book to Screen

To opine that Oppenheimer takes liberties with the massive (800-plus pages) 2005 Pulitzer Prize-winning American Prometheus biography by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin is a little like saying Nolan’s dark, ponderous Batman reboots toe the same line as TV’s spoofy, goofy 1960s Batman series. To start with, Nolan’s non-fiction source is a meticulous, sometimes laborious, molecular-level chronicle of the titanic rise and fall of Oppenheimer, whose brilliant leadership of the U.S. Manhattan Project from 1943 to 1945 led to the development of the first atomic bomb—and with it, the quick, horrific end to the Allied campaign against Japan in World War II.

Nolan, however, characteristically declares war on any and all logical timelines from the opening shot. It’s a film that not only plays fast with the facts but shakes and splinters Oppenheimer’s uber-complicated life and times into thousands of jigsaw-puzzle pieces, jerking the spectator to and fro and across time and place from the 1920s to the 1950s. Postulate last year’s Oscar-winning Everything Everywhere All at Once, but set in a physics lab, not a laundromat.

If Oppenheimer was the main man who smashed and weaponized the atom, Nolan mashes Oppenheimer the movie into a galaxy of fissile bits; however kinetic, together their staying power is less than the sum of the parts. He seems to take Mark Zuckerberg’s infamous managerial mantra (Move fast and break things) literally, and like the Facebook mastermind, never stops long enough to pick up—or add up—the pieces.

Given the barrage of kaleidoscopic images, including nebulous visual fireworks, audiences haven’t time to do much figuring either. What might have been presented as a weighty, deliberate three-hour dramatization of a pivotal scientific, military, and political chapter in 20th-century history (and prelude to the U.S.-USSR Cold War arms race) instead takes flight as a slick, tricked-up, even sensationalized Hollywood biopic. It’s a perpetual motion movie machine, but one that might have been powered by magic mushrooms, not enriched uranium.

Barbenheimer

Nevertheless, Oppenheimer is a triumph of sorts, though chiefly in the areas of hype, hoopla, and amazingly lucky timing. First in the equation is the name recognition and box-office draw of Nolan, probably the most bankable director of his generation, whose hits have ranged from serious non-fiction like Dunkirk to sci-fi fantasy like Inception. Then there’s the coincidental, but heaven-sent summer 2023 theatrical run in a post-Covid world where a long-suffering public was feverishly desperate to get off the couch. Lastly was its love-at-first-sight, blind-date pairing with the Barbie blockbuster, an X-factor opening weekend alchemy that got multiplied countless times into box-office gold.

Surprisingly, the lack of a major marquee star (like Leonardo DiCaprio or even Christian Bale) in the title role didn’t abort Oppenheimer’s blast-off. To play Oppie, Nolan opted for the Irish actor Cillian Murphy. Emily Blunt plays Oppenheimer’s volatile wife Kitty, Gary Oldman stars as all-American (to a fault) President Harry Truman, and Ken Branaugh plays the pioneering Danish physicist Niels Bohr.

Skeptical critics may well question Nolan’s top-heavy U.K. roster, particularly Murphy, whose main acting modus operandi as Oppie is either a) wide-eyed focus and astonishment, or b) wide-eyed shock and regret. He’s abetted in his impersonation by Nolan’s hyperactive camera, which is nearly a constant close-up, in-your-face companion to the leads, so much so it chews up more scenery than does Robert Downey Jr. Jettisoning his Iron Man superhero armor, Downey dons a tie and goes gray to play Lewis Strauss, a petty, two-faced Wall Street political insider who is a catalyst in blowing up Oppenheimer’s postwar standing as America’s leading scientist-hero.

Fission and Frisson

While Nolan whiplashes the audience back and forth through the years, he’s loathe to label the times or places, treating them as if they were state secrets. The result is a dizzying centrifugal swirl of shots and scenes, some in color, some black-and-white, drawing on Oppenheimer’s heady college days in Europe and his first faculty job at the University of California-Berkeley and on to his date with destiny as director, founder, and philosopher-king of the WWII Los Alamos laboratory in New Mexico. Why the black-and-white? It likely has something to do with Nolan’s film noir framing of the tale, which contrasts Oppie’s bright early decades leading up to the development of the bomb with the shadowy post-war era of the McCarthyist anti-communist witch hunts.

By the late 1940s and early 1950s, much had changed in U.S. foreign and domestic politics, and many on the left were persecuted, prosecuted, or simply silenced. Oppenheimer, once the celebrated scientist and renaissance man who helped win the war (while still subject to debate, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs dropped in August 1945 did likely save millions of lives by averting the Allied land invasion of Japan), is stripped of his cherished top-secret security clearance. For many observers and colleagues, Oppenheimer was never the same afterward. He wasn’t exactly a beaten man, but he was effectively muted, defused, and disarmed. He became head of the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., where he would spend the rest of his days in a near-monastic retreat.

Down in Flames

American Prometheus paints a portrait of Oppenheimer as a complicated, contradictory intellectual giant, both ambitious and genteel, shrewd and childishly reckless. Nolan, however, thinks, almost literally, in black and white. Ultimately a neo-Hollywood genre director, he’s always on the hunt for villains, and if he can’t find one or two to blame he will invent them. History reveals that Strauss indeed smuggled in loads of ammunition in the right-wing scheme to take down Oppenheimer, but it’s simplistic and plain wrong to let the other bad actors walk. Among them is the FBI’s autocratic director J. Edgar Hoover, whose G-men began illegally bugging Oppenheimer’s homes and phones in the early 1940s.

There’s also the back-stabbing, malicious physicist Edward Teller, who got cold revenge on his former Los Alamos padrone by testifying Oppie was an unstable security risk—all because he nixed Teller’s pet project to create the “super,” aka H-bomb. There’s even the feckless President Dwight Eisenhower, who did nothing to save Oppenheimer from the humiliating Atomic Energy Commission’s 1954 inquisition ordeal or its damning verdict.

However spotty with the facts, Nolan’s filmic inquiry into the shameful case of J. Robert Oppenheimer really misses the mark when it comes to Oppie’s star-crossed romance with Jean Tatlock who is played by Florence Pugh. Evidently seeing the need to add the sizzle of sex to his film equation, Nolan treats the audience to not one but three gratuitous (and weird) nude scenes.

Hit and Miss Delivery

Historical films necessarily condense, crop, and simplify, but Nolan cuts corners so many times he should be awarded the Ignoble Prize for Ignoring History. It’s not nitpicking to criticize how he turns Albert Einstein into a fatherly Yoda figure for Oppenheimer when in fact the two men weren’t particularly close even though Einstein was in residence at the prestigious New Jersey think tank during Oppenheimer’s tenure.

Their differences stemmed from Einstein’s unbending disbelief in the basic, uncanny tenets of modern quantum mechanics, e.g., that light can be both particle and wave. Nolan dreams up key scenes involving the two of them, one that expands to critical mass in Strauss’ mind as the rationale for his vendetta against Oppenheimer.

If the movie leans on a blitzkrieg of commercial formulaics to lighten up its heavy-duty subject matter, ironically its best moments are when Nolan falls back on old-school textbook filmmaking. While several of the leads fall under Nolan’s command to emote in a blustery, “Look at me, I’m Oscar-positive!” way (Blame Blunt here, with Downey Jr.), Matt Damon has the courage to act admirably at ease instead of acting out. As the brusque Army general who drafts Oppenheimer to assemble and lead the A-bomb dream team, Damon doesn’t quite nail the steely, hard-ass gravitas the role demands, but he deserves a medal for conspicuously cool reserve under fire.

Another exception to Nolan’s showy melodramatics is Oscar winner (Churchill) Gary Oldman. Never known to be camera-shy, Oldman refreshingly underplays his cameo as the folksy, small-minded President Truman, whose victorious handshake welcome to Oppenheimer slowly turns into a virtual slap in the face.

The Trinity Test Scene in Oppenheimer

Audiences may also want to see Oppenheimer for the chilling bravura sequence that culminates in the July 1945 Trinity A-bomb test in the New Mexico desert. Nolan marshals his cast, preps the sets and pyrotechnics, cues the unearthly sights and sounds, and counts down to the blinding mini-apocalypse that changed human history forever. Pondering only the science, theory, and engineering, the product of $2 billion then (around $25 billion today) yet only a few years of round-the-clock work by a team of the best and brightest young Western scientists, the entire endeavor was a magnificent, manifestly diabolical achievement. To date, in nearly 80 years since the Hiroshima and Nagasaki cataclysms, humanity and the planet have been spared the doomsday death and destruction such weapons were born and made to deliver. But for how long?'

[whitepolaris]

Lights Out: The Marble Hill Nuclear Power Plant

It was one of the greatest fiascoes in Indiana's business history-more than $2 billion spent on a project that never made it more than one quarter of the way to completion. Thanks to skyrocketing costs and tremendous waste, the Marble Hill Nuclear Power Plant is now a rusting hulk that nearly sent Public Service Indiana into bankruptcy. Somehow, this "vision of tomorrow" turned into a disaster of epic proportions.

The early 1970s marked the beginning of the nuclear power movement in America. This clean, wonderful power was supposed to save the environment from the pollution caused by the coal-burning power plants of the past. True, it had some dangers, including the waste material that it created. In spite of this, new plants began to be proposed around the country, including in Indiana.

In 1973, Public Service Indiana, which is now owned by Cinergy, planned a nuclear power generating plant at Marble Hill. Located in the southeastern part of the state, the $700 million plant was to be the largest capital project in Indiana history. The plant's design was to include twin Westinghouse reactors, which were supposed to be environmentally friendly, creating no hazardous emissions.

No matter what the claims of the company, though, there were numerous opponents to the project. Their complaints grew louder when the estimated construction costs rose to $1.4 billion in September 1977. Despite the controversy, construction on the plant began in the fall of 1977, with an estimated completion date of 1982. The work was already under way when the disaster at Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania occurred in March 1979. The incident created even more opposition to nuclear plants as critics learned the entire systems could fail and create immense pressure inside the containment structures. After three days, the danger at Three Mile Island passed, but only after contaminating the nearby land and waterways.

Nevertheless, construction continued at Marble Hill, but only for a time. In May 1979, work ground to a halt when some alarming reports came from the project. Charles Cutshall, a former employee of Marble Hill's general contractor, Gust K. Newburg employees were told to cover up construction defects before inspectors saw them. The defects were mainly in the concrete walls. Later inspection revealed honeycombs in the walls that were the result of shoddy work. It was later that if radioactive gas had breached the containment structure, as at Three Mile Island, residents within a thirty-mile radius of the Marble Hill plant would have been affected. Work was shut down on three separate occasions during the summer of 1979 to correct the growing number of conditions reported about poor construction.

In addition to the defects, costs had risen so drastically that the companies in charge of the project could not find the funds to continue work. The Marble Hill plant was officially shut down in 1984 when Governor Robert Orr started that its completion would bankrupt Public Service Indiana and cause huge increases in its customers' rates. Though over $2.8 billion had been spent, only a fraction of the plant had been completed when it was abandoned.

Most of the components, like the reactors and generators, were salvaged and sold to other companies for discounted prices, and in 2005 the turbine building was demolished. It took two blasts to bring the massive structure down. Perhaps because of the cost involved in demolition, the rest of the plant was left standing. Today two containment buildings remain at the overgrown site, telling a strange story of the nuclear plant that never happened.

[waffpup]

Need to vent to release some of the building pressure.

Radioactive waste. That's what I would consider myself when I'm off my meds.

In different to its surroundings. Passively tearing itself apart at the lowest level. An active danger/hazard to those around it. If untreated, best left locked in Isolation for a unending amount of time in the vain hope something can be done about it someday.

I sometimes forget what I'm like without meds. Deeply self destructive and prove to lashing out. Laughably sorry fuse and wild temper. The near expressionless scowl that's carved into my face like stone.

That's the me I fight with countless hours of therapy and a good cocktail of medicine.

And don't forget the paranoia double fisted with near constant overstim.

No one with and kind of nuero divergency gross up well. Especially those with autism/adhd. Gifted kid burn out is so common its a joke. Factor in parents who are either to ignorant to understand and/or too infantile to care, and you've got a heck of a CPTSD starter kit.

[metastablephysicist]

sorry for nitpicking, but i am annoyed. this is a bit disingenuous with the info about nuclear, particularly the linked article about a spill in the mojave in the late 90s. the spill came from a lanthanide mine, that is, they're not mining for nuclear fuels. mining operations unrelated to nuclear fuel can result in material with higher-than-background radioactivity (see also fracking). the spill also involved large amounts of toxic chemicals that aren't going to decay away. mine tailings etc are commonly stored in rural areas and their mismanagement tends to impact marginalized communities. this is a problem with mining in general, not nuclear power specifically.

on the other hand, the article specifically about uranium mining in the middle part of the 20th century and its impact on the navajo nation (& oglala lakota in south dakota). yeah it's bad. it shouldn't have happened this way. this is the one solid point against nuclear, imo.

the other article is about hazardous waste in general, briefly touching on the navajo nation case. it also mentions yucca mountain, a proposed high level radioactive waste repository just west of the nevada test site. it was never opened due to local opposition in nevada. because of the project being defunded, high level waste from reactors is currently stored indefinitely in dry casks (safe for many decades). the lack of a hlw repository has slowed cleanup efforts at hanford and other sites. there are no current plans for an alternative site in the usa; wipp is not meant for hlw storage. i guess we hope and try for the recycling of spent fuels in the meantime? imo, this could have been resolved if local communities such as the shoshone had been directly involved from the projects inception, been given veto power, provided funds to independently verify the safety of the facility, etc. but i suppose i'm getting off topic.

anyways YES nuclear has risks and environmental impacts, most of these are during the mining & processing parts of the fuel cycle. this is not unique to nuclear power, any mining operation deals with toxic materials and historically has dealt with them very poorly (i've lived in appalachia and seen it firsthand). there ARE ways to mitigate environmental impact and risk.

i believe that the magnitude of risk/harm that nuclear power can have and has had is outweighed by its benefits, especially when comparing to current methods of power generation. it is the best route we currently have for replacing fossil fuels. "clean" energy like solar is much more difficult to scale up, and mitigating climate change is kind of an urgent issue. i think we can agree on that.

The Joshua tree is on its way to extinction because so-called green energy companies want to keep the death machine of civilization going by installing large swaths of solar panels over the desert floor, a big metal blanket that will kill everything it covers: the desert tortoise, the sage grouse, the hawks and snakes and beautiful flowers that have flourished for thousands of years. Gone. Gone.

All so that we can keep the dead heart in the rotting corpse of industrial civilization beating into the next decade. These are the "good guys" btw, these are the "renewable" "carbon neutral" options: covering the desert in miles of metal and microchips until every living being without a bank account is dead.

[rametarin]

Tinfoil hat conspiracy time.

I believe many factors are behind why the world isn't using predominantly nuclear fuel for the vast majority of their needs. None of them are because it's genuinely dangerous, because everything is dangerous unless you manage it properly. And nuclear power isn't a dark magic, it's a science. The same as boiling water is a science, but if you do a boiler wrong, the boiler becomes a horrible hazard.

There are the genuine concerns about the stability of the power plant, both naturally and in the event of a 1-in-kadrillions odds of a natural disaster, or human conflict, disrupting and destroying it and leaving a hazardous mess. But, those genuine concerns are mitigated by the sheer power and control of the designs and contingencies.

There are the flippant concerns channeling the fear, such as the idea the smokestacks just belch out DNA damaging radiation that will last forever and mutate and bake the world and animals. Which have been mitigated.

And then there are the people that believe opposing nuclear power somehow negatively affects "the military industrial complex" and by extension crimps our nuclear fuel stores for nuclear weapons, because they're against domestic supplies of nuclear bombs. Generally the position of whiny bleeding hearts, as well as literal traitors pretending to just be those conscientous objectors- that only really cared about protecting the USSR and their tinpot dictator proxies.

But I think one of the reasons we did not go full gung-ho on nuclear power, is simply because reliance on oil and natural gas was a strategic way to compete with the desires for OPEC and Russia to monopolize fuel. If the United States sped ahead with nuclear power, abandoned its fossil fuel industry, that would've meant we'd have no stake in the cheap systems other countries use, not suspecting Russia was intending to do to them, what they did during the war in Ukraine. Blackmailing them for complacency, or suddenly shocking their economies and infrastructure by shutting down the fuel from the pipes for their industries.

I believe US intel understood this risk, the position of the Russians on this, and one of the big reasons we aren't living in a nuclear power monopoly right now, is because we still needed to play along to operate in the same theater as OPEC and Russia. And we can see now, with our domestic shale gas and oil supplies glutting the global supply and lowering the global price of fuel that OPEC+ (Middle eastern petro states, and Russia) is trying to keep high, artificially, that it was the right decision.

What has been holding the entire world back for so long has been keeping Russia all-eggs-in that basket they were really hoping to continue doing post Soviet Union. To dominate and control fossil fuels and lord them over everybody around them, from Western Europe, to Central and Southern and Eastern Asia, to the middle east. And they were trying to monopolize South America.

I think in the event of Russia collapsing again, after having gambled on fossil fuels for so long, we may go ahead and just start erecting nuclear power plants again. It always rubbed me the wrong way that they didn't even TRY to counteract the anti-nuclear propaganda. The government spent more effort on MILK drinking propaganda campaigns. If it wanted cheap, plentiful, extremely safe and environmentally benign forms of power, we'd fucking have it right now. But they let it seem like a bunch of Crypto-Communists and the fear they instilled into soccer moms about domestic nuclear explosions and toxic radioactive waste clouds mutating their little Billy, had their way.

I don't buy it. They let the anti-nuclear propagandists have their day, and didn't even try to counteract them with awareness campaigns or anything. They very easily could have. They chose not to.

In hindsight, I think it was the right decision for a great big opsec campaign through generations. One that they had to literally endure to their reputations as competent, long term thinkers and planners, as not letting oil barons walk all over them, all while the USSR, then Russian, political activists still tied to the Kremlin, engaged in the sort of propaganda that painted the west as entirely bourgoise, run by nepotist industrialists in a corrupt capitalist system.

It made it so much easier to lure Russia into a false sense of security. And so, here we are today. They (Russia) gambled. The Russians bet on the wrong approach. The west, "being so corrupted by fossil fuel oligarchs," was ready and waiting, and their biggest weapons against foreign economies.. monopoly on fossil fuels and their transportation.. was disrupted and made moot, both by their lack of competence, and our operational domestic policies treating that as if Russia was operating as a bad faith actor pulling some shit.

So on the one hand, we have Russia lured into a false sense of security, playing right into the hands of people allowing them to be the worst version of themselves domestically, after giving them hundreds of chances since 1991 to reform, to choose the right paths, and every single time, them choosing, "Russia stronk. >:3" and just continuing to operate against their neighbors as if they were trying to incrementally restore the Soviet Union, or Imperialist Russia. Just bucking opportunities to do the smart things policy-wise and stray from the path they were on, of trying to dominate and control both directly, indirectly and via proxies. And getting absolutely crushed for it by giving their economy Dutch Disease by overreliance on one nationalized resource it tries to have the monopoly on globally, drowning under a sea of cheap oil and gas released JUST to fuck with it.

And on the other, we have their military hubris. Demographically the country is suffering because nobody is really having babies, because of the shitty domestic policy decisions they made out of pride and delusions of grandure. So they doubled down on doctrine that calls for many, many armored vehicles and expendable mighty soldiers to ride them and bulldoze over neighbors in conquest. And promptly got blown out of the gene pool by a sea of anti-armor missiles and drones. Until there were few remaining, and they were down to sacrificing thousands per week on Zerg Rushing In Real Life.

So the big Russian gamble to wind up as the kingmakers with cheap fuel that can make or break state economies has been compromised and all the momentum and power of that position has bled away. The integrity of the state is such that they can't reliably monopolize, even nationalizing crime to brutalize others.

And their hopes of skating on the inertia of being a mighty military power are also sinking, with even the surplus Soviet shit as an absolute minimum disappearing like when your younger brother decides to use SHOW ME THE MONEY in classic Starcraft, but keeps losing because they misappropriate the funds and don't know how to play.

These are two very, extremely important events. Russia has not had losses like these since World War 2. The losses to every conflict since are paltry by comparison. The shock of what fighting in Afghanistan did to Soviet society reverberated far and wide, and that was just close to 15-16 thousand soldiers dead, over a decade of conflict. While we're almost up to (according to Ukraine) 700K Russian casualties (deaths and incapacitations) since 2022.

The truth is, the United States and Western Europe didn't need to do ANYTHING for this outcome to occur the way it did. Just allow Russia to be itself. But after decades of making excuses, of trying to dissuade them, to appease them, from reverting to old Soviet mentalities and continuing to be bratty little assholes on the world stage, being excused because, "Well they sure are trying to do better! :\" I believe the US and the Western European powers finally just.. let them be themselves. No excuses, no more wiped slates hoping just one more incursion into Jordan, or South Ossetia, or Crimea, would satisfy them.

In all honesty, by just humoring them and not reprimending them, I believe the west thought they could understand and cultivate a better way for Russia. A way that Putin's Russia saw as weakness and gullibility, and so like a bratty psycho child, ran roughshod on behind their backs, and to their faces when they could get away with it.

The war in Ukraine is simply the results of the West not making excuses for Russia anymore. "Nope, you shit your bed, and now you lay in it." Where they now have to fight against a non-nuclear power on their doorstep, and try not to look bad by getting absolutely fucking TROUNCED because they spent the last 35 years selecting for loyalty to a corrupt, inherently toxic domestic system, over competence and integrity.

Their strengths, if one can call them that, has been made into vulnerabilities and absolutely exploited, as they had no warning nor anticipation the enemy was going to be able to exploit them so quickly and so thoroughly. Everything from their military supply and strategy, to their diplomatic and domestic strength from oil- just, subverted.

This could not have happened in quite the same way if we'd gone nuclear back in the 60s and 70s. This could not have forced them to wallow in ignorance and deprivation and doing what was the lowest hanging fruit given the circumstances- after all, everybody still used oil, and it was looking like they would for a long time, right?

It is for these reasons, that I think after Russia's economy and military has been capsized and burned and an effort is put underway to cleanse the system and get the nation back on its feet under different circumstances, there's going to be a MMMMAASSIVE rush and push towards nuclear fission plants for base power. Globally. Because the strategic value against a dynamic petro state trying to keep it cheap enough to get neighboring weaker powers addicted to it and dependent, will have dried up.

In a Post-Russia-as-global-power world, there won't BE a country like Russia trying to be the cardiovascular system of the oil and gas industries incarnate. And no reason to remain stuck that way. The final, deep state resistance based purely on national security and international stability will melt away, and the final practical reasons not to have nuclear power plants will go away.

This is just my theory. We are on the cusp of something absolutely huge, here.

[upton-sinclair-official]

About Me

My name is Upton Sinclair, and I am here to quarrel with the dangerously unregulated state of the US food and drug manufacturing industries. I have been made aware that in the nearly 120 years since I first attempted to bring awareness to the hazardous nature of manufactured foods and medications in this nation, there has been little progress.

In my day, anyone could sell anything and say it was a miracle cure, without disclosing the ingredients and their respective quantities or the safety concerns associated with the product. The manufacturer had no obligation to inform the consumer if the product even provided its promised benefits (which it rarely did). One could brand oneself a doctor and sell whatever bunk panacea they so chose, making whichever claims they felt like making, regardless of the verity of those claims. It was miserable. Americans were falling ill to deadly foodborne microbes present in their groceries, overdosing on untested, adulterated, and potent drugs in their cough remedies, sickened by heavy metals and radioactive materials in their cosmetics, and wasting money on do-nothing elixirs.

All of this spurred President Theodore Roosevelt to sign the 1906 Food and Drug Act, which granted Harvey Washington Wiley's Bureau of Chemistry the ability to oversee various areas of consumer safety. While threatened by idiotic judicial action and arbitrary divisions of regulation into multiple agencies (the Board of Food and Drug Inspection and the separate Referee Board of Consulting Scientific Experts), this was a major improvement. In 1927, the regulatory practices were reorganized into a new USDA body, the Food, Drug, and Insecticide Organization, which was later shortened to just the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA was later granted more powers with the 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, further guarding the American consumer from toxic materials.

For a brief, glorious era the American consumer was finally able to rest knowing that the foods they ate and the treatments they took were regulated by a disinterested federal agency. It was never perfect, with concerns existing regarding supplements and compounded pharmaceuticals, but various amendments increased the government's ability to monitor the medications produced in the United States. The FDA could ensure that powerful medications were only available under the watchful eye of a trained professional, that marketed drugs had been proven to be safe and effective in scientific trials, and that drug studies conformed to safety guidelines. Later, the FDA made procedures for the approval of generic medications, giving consumers the ability to buy their needed treatments from different companies than those that invented the medication for a cheaper price, and started allowing promising new medications to safely bypass standard testing protocols in instances where speed was of the utmost importance.

Then came the supplement and compounding lobbies. The government caved to the demands of the multi-billion dollar supplement industry to have less regulation with the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994. DSHEA has made it possible for "herbal medications" and "natural healing products" to be sold and advertised despite making false claims regarding health benefits, and has prevented the FDA from inspecting and regulating manufacturing conditions at supplement plants. The supplement lobby was able to turn the American public against the organization that secured their health and safety through ads laden with logical fallacies and ad hominem attacks, and, under the pressures of public opinion, a huge industry lobby, and corrupt politicians with personal stakes in the supplement industry, such as Orin Hatch (R-UT) and Tom Harkin (D-IA), the legislatures soon caved and passed this blow to American wellbeing.

Another blow was dealt to the FDA in 2013 with the Drug Quality and Security Act. This act was drafted as a response to a deadly 2012 outbreak of fungal meningitis caused by compounded spinal steroid injections made by the New England Compounding Center, which struck 798 injection recipients, typically people with chronic pain, and killed at least 100. Compounded medications are medications historically made in small-scale family pharmacies and therefore subject to lesser oversight. Compounding is often used in cases where different ingredients or dosages are needed for a particular patient, but loopholes in the laws and the political force of the compounding lobby have lead to a massive shadow industry of the semi-legal mass-production of compounded pharmaceuticals, made in factories that aren't subject to regular safety inspections, being shipped across state lines, with devastating effects. While the intentions of this act were pure, the initial draft was twisted by supporters of the compounding industry into a nothing law. The compounders are allowed to compound, overseen by inattentive and underfunded state governments, only they may now choose to be approved and regulated by the FDA. This is completely useless, as it's optional, and doesn't much benefit the compounding manufacturers. What does benefit them are the repeals of some restrictions that their industry had previously been subject to- now, compounding pharmacies are allowed to promote their wares through advertisements.

These legal changes have destroyed the FDA's ability to monitor two major components of the American medical product landscape. We were on the path of improvement, but we have now turned ourselves back around. The compounding and supplement industries are dangerous, and my goal is to continue my mission of keeping the everyman safe from experimental treatments, do-nothing money-pits, and predatory business practices.

It's time to rejuvenate the FDA.

Main Sources:

Dearen J. KILL SHOT : A Shadow Industry, a Deadly Disease. Avery Pub Group; 2022.

2. Offit PA. Do You Believe in Magic? : The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine. Harper; 2013.

[abslogistics]

How To Ship Dangerous Goods: India's Development in the Sector

The most crucial aspect of logistics is the transportation of Dangerous Goods Cargo also known as Hazardous Materials Shipping, which requires specialized knowledge, precautions, and regulatory compliance. Let’s deep dive and get insights into dangerous goods cargo, their classification, transportation process, and India's progress in developing this particular sector.

Classification: Dangerous goods are classified into different hazard classes and assigned UN numbers based on their properties. This classification determines the packaging, labelling, and handling requirements for each type of dangerous good. The US Department of Transportation (DOT) and the international regulatory agencies have recognized 9 classes of dangerous goods. Let’s learn a few examples from each Class:

Class 1: Explosives - Fireworks, Ammunition

Class 2: Gases - Fire extinguishers, Aerosols

Class 3: Flammable Liquids - Paints, Alcohols

Class 4: Flammable Solids, Spontaneous Combustibles - Carbon, Sodium batteries

Class 5: Oxidizers - Hydrogen peroxide, Ammonium nitrate fertilizers, Pool chlorine

Class 6: Toxic or Infectious Substances - Medical waste, Pesticides

Class 7: Radioactive Materials - Medical treatment products, Uranium

Class 8: Corrosives - Batteries, Iodine

Class 9: Miscellaneous - Dry ice, First aid kits

Guidelines: Regulations for the transportation of dangerous goods are documented and provided by the UN for the safe handling, packaging, and transportation of such goods across the globe. Below are the guidelines to get Dangerous Good Cargo shipping. Companies like FedX, ABS Logistics, and others in the market follow proper guidelines. Depending on the contents of your shipment, additional markings may be required.

Shipper’s address

Recipient’s address

Proper shipping name as designated by the US Department of Transportation (DOT)

The UN/NA Identification Number

India’s Development in the DGC Sector:

If you want smooth transportation of dangerous goods cargo, you need to pay attention to safety, compliance, regulations, and specialized expertise. India has been actively developing its infrastructure, regulatory framework, and training programs to enhance safety standards in this sector. Companies like ABS Logistics in India, play a vital role by providing seamless services, expertise, and adherence to safety protocols, With continued focus and collaboration among stakeholders, India's dangerous goods cargo sector is poised to strengthen its safety standards and operational efficiency.

[saniya241]

Pollution

Anything added into the environment that results in producing harmful or poisonous effect on living things is called pollution. Pollution is the process that makes nature’s resources such as land, water, air or other parts of the environment unsafe or unsuitable to use. Pollution can be of many types: soil, air, water, thermal, radioactive, noise, and light. The toxins released are inhaled by each one of us while we breathe.

Pollution and its Causes

Inhaling poisonous air is as hazardous as smoking. It is not only the humans who are affected from this polluted environment but also the animals. Air is filled with highly toxic gases. These dangerous gases in environment are released by the power industries that burn fossil fuels, industries that dispose wastes in the water, farmers using pesticides, high usage of artificial lights and loud sounds, etc. Each of these leads to generation of the life threatening cause – pollution.

Any use of natural resources at a rate higher than the nature’s capacity to restore itself can result in pollution of air, water, and land. Other than human activities, there are a few periodic natural cycles that also result in release of dangerous stuff. Natural activities other than the human activities like volcanic eruption, dust wildfires, etc also result in creation of pollution.

Globalizationis another major cause of pollution.Globalization has become an effective facilitator of environmental degradation.

Conclusion

Every individual owns certain responsibility of maintaining few points such as not throwing garbage all around, growing trees, using public transport instead of their own, etc. We must shun excessive consumption and avoid careless and deliberate disposal of post-consumption waste resources which could otherwise be recycled and would led to pollution control.

Pollution cannot be reduced or controlled if a sense of responsibility towards our Mother Earth is not felt by all concerned.

[thatboomerkid]

Rage-Fueled Fully-Automatic Disposable Gun-Piggy

Rage-Fueled Fully-Automatic Disposable Gun-Piggy

fomor boar (see M20 Gods & Monsters pg. 105) for use with Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition, W20 Book of the Wyrm, and Book of the Wyrm Companion

ATTRIBUTES: Strength 5, Dexterity 2, Stamina 6, Perception 2, Intelligence 2, Wits 2

ABILITIES: Alertness 2, Athletics 2, Brawl 2, Intimidation 2

Willpower: 3

Health Levels: OK, OK, -1, -1, -2, -5, Incapacitated

Armor Rating: 1 (seven soak dice, total)

Attacks: Bite (Strength +1 lethal); Gore (Strength +2 lethal); Body Horror Cannon (8 dice lethal; 25 yard range at Difficulty 6; may fire as a single-shot or Three-Round Burst [W20, pg. 295] weapon; see below)

Fomori Powers: Berserker, Body-Horror Cannon (x2), Eat Corruption

Brought to you absolutely free to use, to enjoy, to share, to dick-around with, and to argue about  – as always – by the fine folks of my Patreon.

Hugest of special thanks to Josh Heath and to all of my First Team: Last Chancers & Exalted Vs. World of Darkness players.

Portions of this material are the copyrights and trademarks of Paradox Interactive AB, and are used with permission. All rights reserved. For more information please visit worldofdarkness.com.

Nothing here is official World of Darkness material.

art by the incredible Joey Wallace

Berserker: A Rage-Fueled Fully-Automatic Disposable Gun-Piggy has a Rage Trait of 5; it may spend & regain Rage exactly as if it were an Ahroun (W20, pg. 144-145) and is allowed a standard Rage-roll to remain active after falling to (or below) Incapacitated. In addition, a Rage-Fueled Fully-Automatic Gun-Piggy regains points of temporary Rage by consuming corpses, radioactive material, bio-hazardous toxic waste, and other absolutely horrible things (such as, just for example, radioactive corpses soaked in bio-hazardous toxic waste; see the Eat Corruption Power, below, for details). Rage-Fueled Fully-Automatic Gun-Piggies are vulnerable to frenzy (W20, pg. 261-262).

---

Body-Horror Cannon: As a standard action, a Rage-Fueled Fully-Automatic Disposable Gun-Piggy may choose to spend a point of Willpower or Rage, suffer an unsoakable Health Level of aggravated damage, and roll Willpower, difficulty 7. On a success, the Rage-Fueled Fully-Automatic Disposable Gun-Piggy draws-forth its cannon instantly; on a failure, it begins pulling the cannon free but must wait three full turns before the weapon is fully ready.

NOTE: The Rage-Fueled Fully-Automatic Disposable Gun-Piggy is free to act normally during this time: it does not need to spend further actions “drawing the weapon” as the object slowly emerges from the creature’s body. The Rage-Fueled Fully-Automatic Disposable Gun-Piggy may – should it fail on this activation-roll – choose to pull the weapon free early, but doing so prevents the beast from regaining its lost Health Level of aggravated damage when the effect of this Power ends (see below).

On a botch, the point of Willpower is spent and the Health Level of aggravated damage is dealt, but the Rage-Fueled Fully-Automatic Disposable Gun-Piggy can’t force its weapon to emerge from its body for the rest of the scene.

If the Rage-Fueled Fully-Automatic Disposable Gun-Piggy achieves three or more successes on the Willpower roll to activate this Power, the beast reduces all Difficulties to use the weapon in combat by -1.

When this Power is fully activated, the Rage-Fueled Fully-Automatic Disposable Gun-Piggy gains use of a Semi-Automatic Shotgun (W20, pg. 303) with unlimited ammunition (detailed above).

This hideous biomechanical firearm is pulled from the monster’s body, still dripping viscera and roaring like a chainsaw, and is often studded with weeping human eyes, crafted of compressed car-engines & rotten meat, continually spraying blood – and less-identifiable fluids – as it screams affronts to Gaia; such cannons are usually crawling with maggots & the obsidian-jade balefire of deepest Malfeas: in all instances, the mere sight of such a weapon incites the Delirium.

This grotesque weapon merges once again with the Rage-Fueled Fully-Automatic Disposable Gun-Piggy’s body at the end of the scene or after one hour, whichever comes first; the Rage-Fueled Fully-Automatic Disposable Gun-Piggy may choose, at that time, to expend an additional point of Willpower (or Rage) to instead maintain its weapon’s existence for one additional hour or for one additional scene, as appropriate.

The Rage-Fueled Fully-Automatic Disposable Gun-Piggy may always choose to reabsorb its weapon at any time as a free reflexive action.

If this weapon is removed from the grasp of the Rage-Fueled Fully-Automatic Disposable Gun-Piggy early, the weapon decays to bits of cartilage, rot, and infected, bubbling ooze at the end of the round … then erupts once more from the Rage-Fueled Fully-Automatic Disposable Gun-Piggy’s body – appearing in the monster’s hands, ready to use – immediately before the beast’s next action.

When the Rage-Fueled Fully-Automatic Disposable Gun-Piggy absorbs its weapon back into its body and ends the use of this Power, the monster instantly regenerates its lost Health Level of aggravated damage … unless the weapon was drawn-froth early after a failure on the creature’s activation roll, as noted above.

Each unique, individual Rage-Fueled Fully-Automatic Disposable Gun-Piggy may choose three (3) of the following Special Ammunition Types when it crawls forth to defile & devour Gaia’s children:

Acid-Drenched Thunderwyrm-Teeth: The piggy’s cannon deals -4 dice of damage as compared to a normal Semi-Automatic Shotgun, but the weapon deals aggravated damage rather than lethal; any creature struck by a blast from the weapon also suffers an additional 2 dice of aggravated damage, soaked separately, the following round (difficulty 6 to soak).

Jagged-Razor Bone-Slivers: The piggy’s cannon deals -1 die of damage as compared to a normal Semi-Automatic Shotgun, but the weapon automatically ignores up to three points of armor. This specific Special Ammunition Type may be selected multiple times, and its effects stack: a cannon with Jagged-Razor Bone-Slivers [x3], for example, deals -3 dice of base damage and ignores up to nine points of armor. The Rage-Fueled Fully-Automatic Disposable Gun-Piggy may always choose to apply a smaller number of “doses” of this Special Ammunition Type to a shot it makes, if it desires.

Nasty, Sharp, and Pointy: The piggy’s cannon deals +1 die of damage. This specific Special Ammunition Type may be selected multiple times, and its effects stack: a weapon with Acid-Drenched-Thunderwyrm-Teeth plus Nasty, Sharp, and Pointy [x2], for example, would deal -2 dice of base shotgun damage, aggravated (rather than -4 dice); the target would then suffer 2 dice of aggravated damage (as normal) the following round.

‘Splodin’ Tumor-Loogie: The piggy’s cannon deals -2 dice of damage to its primary target; when its projectile detonates, however, the shot then deals [-1 die/2 yards out] of lethal damage to everything else in the area: this means 6 dice of lethal to the first target, 5 dice to everything within two yards, 4 die to everything within four yards, and so-on all the way down to one die of lethal damage to anyone 10 yards away from the target (this is, of course, assuming that the blast doesn’t also have the Nasty, Sharp, and Pointy Special Ammunition Type, above, applied to it -- increasing the base damage of the shot -- or any Special Ammunition Type that LOWERS the base damage of the weapon).

Tumor Full of Infected Waste: This unique Special Ammunition Type may only be added to a ‘Splodin’ Tumor-Loogie shot (see above); when the projectile detonates, it also coats everything within ten yards of the detonation-point with a thick layer of bubbling biohazardous sludge, which very rapidly begins filling the same area with toxic gas. Direct expose to the sizzling liquid deals 2 dice of lethal damage each turn, on the target’s action, until it’s washed-off, while exposure to the fumes deals 2 more dice of lethal damage each turn (also on the target’s action). Creatures with any level of poison resistance or immunity to poison (such as leeches and those with the Gift: Resist Toxin) are immune to the gas, but not to the sludge; a creature outfitted in a full biohazard suit is effectively immune to both. The sludge and gas dissipate after about ten minutes unless cleared-away early: use of the Gift: Call the Breeze (W20, pg. 199) can push away the fumes, but not the sludge itself. This specific Special Ammunition Type may be selected multiple times, and its effects stack: each time it’s selected, the sludge and the fumes each increase the damage they deal by two dice of lethal damage.

Tumor of Gore-Slick Calcification: This unique Special Ammunition Type may only be added to a ‘Splodin’ Tumor-Loogie shot that is also a Tumor Full of Infected Waste shot; when the projectile detonates, the sizzling bile sprayed over everything in the area rapidly hardens into a dense, solid mass of semi-organic, contagion-ridden resin: something like pustulent basalt – formed by the rapid cooling of liquid iron – bubbling with hot plastics & liquefied death. Each round on her action, immediately after a creature suffers additional damage from the toxic sludge of a Tumor Full of Infected Waste, the creature also gains one of the following (her choice):

she suffers a one-die penalty on all Dexterity-related dice pools

she suffers a two-dice penalty on all Perception-related dice pools

her movement-speed is halved, rounded down: because a normal human jogs at a rate of 13 yards per turn and runs at a rate of 20 yards per turn, a human who selects this effect twice (for example) may jog at a rate of only 3 yards per turn or flat-out run at a rate of 5 yards per turn

A creature reduced to a Dexterity score of zero or lower by this effect is effectively frozen – immobilized, able to take only purely mental and social actions (such as screaming for help, activating Gifts that require no external movement, or having a panic attack, for example) – while a creature reduced to a Perception score of zero or lower is effectively blind, deaf, and utterly numb, able to smell and taste only the thick, clotted, tar-like poison coating her, with all sensory-organs otherwise filled-in & glued-shut.

The congealing sludge eventually becomes glass-like – still oozing, ever so slightly, like 120-degree asphalt warping under a gout of balefire – and subsequently shatters into shards of irritating organic-metal dust after about ten minutes (as normal for a Tumor Full of Infected Waste shot).

This specific Special Ammunition Type may be selected multiple times, and its effects stack; each time it’s selected, a creature affected by the sludge suffers an additional “debuff” of her choice (an extra die of Dexterity-penalty, two extra dice of Perception-penalty, or an extra halving of her movement-speed) each round, immediately after suffering damage from the sludge of a Tumor Full of Infected Waste effect: a creature hit by a Tumor of Gore-Slick Calcification [x3] shot, for example, might choose to gain a two-dice Dexterity-penalty and a two-dice Perception-penalty on her first found after suffering damage, then choose to suffer a four-dice Perception-penalty and halve her movement-speed again on the following round.

The Rage-Fueled Fully-Automatic Disposable Gun-Piggy may always mix-&-match its Special Ammunition Types as it desires, switching between them or combining them on the fly.

NOTE: if a Rage-Fueled Fully-Automatic Disposable Gun-Piggy would ever gain a new Fomori Power for any reason, the beast may instead choose to gain two (2) new Special Ammunition Types.

---

Eat Corruption: A Rage-Fueled Fully-Automatic Disposable Gun-Piggy may draw strength & sustenance from unnatural sources, gaining up to ten points of Willpower or Rage (piggy’s choice!) each day from consuming objects thick with corruption and nightmare resonance.

No single object consumed in this way can provide more than three points of Rage (or Willpower), and most such objects provide only a single point. Objects to be consumed must be things associated with depravity, monstrosity, decay, or excess: the Rage-Fueled Fully-Automatic Disposable Gun-Piggy gains no benefit from consuming gravel, unless it’s from a spot where a mortal died.

A Rage-Fueled Fully-Automatic Disposable Gun-Piggy can even gain Rage (or Willpower) from eating normal human food, so long as the food is eaten in full view of a starving person; alternatively, the piggy might smear the food with blood or other bodily fluids first.

A Rage-Fueled Fully-Automatic Disposable Gun-Piggy may also -- at the Storyteller’s discretion -- gain Rage (or Willpower) from consuming murder weapons, stolen wedding rings, rare art, illegal drugs, human flesh, maggots, vomit, feces, insects, bones, and suicide notes.

===

enjoying this? get more here!

===

Word on the street these days has it that Chicago-based “private conceptual bio-research design-&-consulting firm” (read as: illegal black-ops military-grade flesh-engineering studio) Jetpacks & Sugar-Bombs LTD. — an off-the-books division of Nik-Nak Computing & high-profile, top-end contractor for Project Echidna — is, as of this most recent financial quarter, under new management.

VERY new management.

This is, just to be clear, more than somewhat to be expected: the catastrophic failure of the Particularly Diseased Pigeon (Book of the Wyrm Companion, pg. 46-47) to hit its numbers in terms of “being able to fucking MURDER a whole shit-ton of Bone Gnawers & their kin” could NOT have come at a worse time for the company, already reeling from the tragically underwhelming debut of the Lookie-Loo Hooty-Hooter (Book of the Wyrm Companion, pg. 38-39).

Long story short? Inflation is up, real wages are down, the stock market is a shit-show, the economy is a shambles, another recession is right around the corner, and the Lookie-Loo Hooty-Hooter is — while certainly a, uhhhh … a “technical marvel,” I guess? — it simply lacks the ... eh, how you say?

The uh ...

THE MOTHERFUCKING WOW!!1! FACTOR, DAWG

... I suppose, that’s required to truly electrify the Board of Directors.

Look, man: Peter Culliford, Benjamin Rushing, and Chase Lamont may not agree on much — other than a shared love of serial-murder & some hardcore mutual disdain for one another — but I think we can all agree that they (and their colleagues) expect something slightly more impressive than “an owl that can see werewolves” when Harold Zettler unveils his newest project.

Like, you know!

A penguin made out of napalm!

An orangutan that shits ninja-stars!

A rattlesnake with a rocket-launcher, and then when it bites you it turns your blood into even more rocket-launcher-snakes that shoot their way out! Pew pew pew!

And let’s be clear: while Jetpacks & Sugar-Bombs LTD. may have a few big wins under their belt, they are — sad to say — sorely lacking the proven track-record of a group like Danmakuden Dynamic (an affiliate of Ichibashi, a subsidiary of Hallahan Fishing Company), or the First United Blargarian Church of Squaid the Redeemer (a splinter-faction of Incognito), or even those asshole bastards over at the Dick Meatsweats Collective (very proudly sponsored by O’Tolley’s, the Family Place!).

Speaking of which?

Yeah, those conniving shit-heals rushed their piss-poor, brick-stupid, utterly-unnecessarily-flashy Pure Goddamn ‘Murikan Patriotism Elemental (Book of the Wyrm Companion, pg. 53-54) out of beta-testing just to get the jump on the hot new King Vulture-fomor currently being built by the evil genius ornithologist team at Jetpacks & Sugar-Bombs, Codename: The King of Vrock.

THERE IS NONE HIGHER.

Hey, dickheads! “Avian-based fomori” are, like, their THING over here, man!

... or, I guess, at least, they were?

A guy who knows a guy who works at Jetpacks & Sugar-Bombs told me that Harold Zettler flew-in from Beaumont on the night the new quarterly figures dropped to personally eviscerate the CEO & feed him to his top brass.

It was a goddamn horror-show, man.

Anyway: Jetpacks & Sugar-Bombs is officially out of the bird-business.

They’re now in the PIG business.

‘Cause the new big-man over at Jetpacks & Sugar-Bombs -- a fellow by the name of Beauregard T. Waterhouse, former head honcho of Southeastern Waterhouse-Mangrove Suburban Development, responsible for fifteen out of the twenty largest hog-rendering facilities in the United States -- has a vision.

And that vision may be briefly summarized as The Age of Swine.

... the longer & less-summarized version, which Beauregard is currently writing-up -- one chapter at a time! -- as a sort of tell-all, self-help, personal-growth & lifestyle-fitness guide / business-Bible for all those cutthroat businessmen who aren’t (yet) greedy enough to literally devour the bones of the enemies, gets a LOT more into Mr. Waterhouse’s deeply held personal belief that “humans,” as a species, will very soon be replaced by a race of genetically-engineered super pig-human hybrids who have been designed to be as delicious as possible.

Once he’s finished, he’s REALLY hoping to get on Oprah with it.

Maybe on Joe Rogan.

Fingers crossed!

(Please note that the “T.” in Mr. Waterhouse’s name stands for “The Boss”).

A figure otherwise shrouded in mystery, Mr. Waterhouse is an intensely private man: they say that no one has ever met him personally, dealing with him only through phone calls, emails, and his loyal assistant: Scoot Turgsen.

Scoot Turgson, ladies & gentlemen: proud, card-carrying member of Tau Upsilon Phi (W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg. 137)

The reason for this privacy is two-fold:

Such anonymity affords Mr. Waterhouse the rare & valuable opportunity to sow mistrust, discord, paranoia, and suspicion among his employees.

Mr. Waterhouse is not human, per se, and in point of fact is technically a Skullpig (W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg. 154-155) who has eaten so many goddamn fomori that he’s now rocking an Intelligence of 5 (or possibly higher, if you decide to give him the Mega-Intelligence Fomori Power [W20 Book of the Wyrm, pg. 133-134 & Book of the Wyrm Companion, pg. 59], because ... eh. Why the fuck not, at this point?)

... and oh yeah, it ALSO lets Mr. Waterhouse do a wide variety of goofy voices for his own amusement (one of his favorite hobbies): while in-character as a CEO, for example, he 100% sounds like Foghorn Leghorn fucked Boss Hog.

He just finds it very funny to hear people shit themselves with terror while he rants & raves about killing them into a speaker-phone with a silly accent.

But that’s not important right now.

What’s important is that Mr. Waterhouse now has the money & connections to make his dream of replacing humans with swine-monsters an actual reality; his hot new Rage-Fueled Fully-Automatic Disposable Gun-Piggies, already in the ramp-up to full-on industrial-scale production, are just his first step.

He has so many more horrible ideas.

And pigs are SO CHEAP to work with!

... and unless someone from the Garou Nation and/or the Beast Courts of the Emerald Mother* can get their shit together and stop him, Mr. Waterhouse is gonna kill a whole goddamn lot of people as he attempts to stomp the world into mud beneath an infinite tide of squealing, Bane-infested murder-pigs.

*NOTE: that would be your PCs.

---

As noted above: portions of these materials are the copyrights and trademarks of Paradox Interactive AB, and are used with permission. All rights reserved. For more information please visit worldofdarkness.com.

Nothing here is official World of Darkness material.

all hail the Dark Pack.

(for more information, see here)

[thinkingimages]

An Orthodox church stands near an oil refinery that caught fire in an early April missile attack near the Ukrainian port city Odessa. (Nacho Doce/Reuters)

How Russia's Invasion of Ukraine Is Harming Water, Air, Soil, and Wildlife

The environmental impact of a single bomb falling in a field is disastrous — the crater opened up in the earth, the wildlife destroyed, the ensuing immolation, the explosive release of heavy metals and toxic chemicals spreading throughout the landscape and atmosphere.

Now imagine thousands of bombs across one of the most industrialized countries in the world, exploding in towns and cities, in manufacturing zones and wildlife refuges.

This environmental nightmare is happening in Ukraine, where the Russian military is routinely targeting critical infrastructure and hazardous sites. As efforts to stop the war rightly focus on minimizing the death toll and ongoing displacement of citizens, an environmental catastrophe is unfolding that will last long after the final Russian troops leave the country and could harm Ukrainian communities for years to come.

Environmental advocates have labeled the situation an "ecocide" and are trying to bring international criminal charges against Russia for the environmental destruction its military has already caused.

“Russia should pay for these crimes,” said Evgenia Zasiadko, the head of the climate department at Ecoaction, a Ukrainian environmental advocacy group. “Not only for the people who have been killed and harmed, not only for the infrastructure and cities, but also for the damage to the environment.

“My worst fear is that the damage will be so huge that we won’t be able to rebuild,” she said.

Zasiadko has been working with her colleagues to record the environmental crimes of the Russian invasion. They’re scouring news reports, social media, and have a dedicated Telegram channel for receiving tips.

As of March 28, her team had documented 110 explicit environmental crimes — and these only represent a fraction of the total, she said. The incidents are far ranging and affect the country’s water, soil, and air quality, as well as wildlife.

“The Pentagon database has recorded 1,200 [precision] missiles, and all of these missiles, bombs, and tanks contain waste,” she said. “Now and in the future, heavy metals will be in our groundwater and soil. We’re an agricultural country, and when it’s not an active war, I don't know how we’re going to rebuild anything because it's going to be polluted.”

There have been at least 36 attacks on fossil fuel infrastructure, 29 attacks on electricity stations, 7 attacks on water supplies, and 6 attacks on nuclear facilities, Ecoaction has noted.

After an attack on the Sumykhimprom chemical plant in northern Ukraine, ammonia began leaking until it covered an area with a radius of 2.5 kilometers, Zasiadko said, threatening nearby communities by contaminating groundwater supplies, the soil, and wildlife.

Forest fires caused by missiles near the Chornobyl nuclear facility have caused radioactive material to enter the atmosphere. Rockets fired by Russian soldiers at the ​​Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant nearly caused a nuclear disaster.

Oil and gas facilities in Kharkiv have come under heavy fire since the war began, disrupting Ukraine’s energy supply, and releasing enormous amounts of greenhouse gas emissions and other contaminants into the atmosphere that make it difficult to breathe.

Each day brings new reports of the Russian military destroying Ukraine’s environment with thermobaric bombs and other powerful weapons. Some cities, like Mariupol, have become so heavily bombarded that they are now unlivable, due to both a lack of infrastructure and extreme toxicity in the environment.

Wildlife refuges are being targeted and zoos have been attacked. Zasiadko said that 44% of the country’s most vulnerable environmental areas are in active war zones, with bombs causing significant harm to various ecosystems.

Russia is also targeting the country’s food sector, destroying agricultural equipment and warehouses.  

article continues

[dragonmuse]

Prompt fill: Izzy getting atacked by his allergies. Anon sent this in and I swear I saw it and wrote it and then the question just wasn't in my ask box anymore. Did I delete it? Did tumblr eat it? A mystery for the ages. Anyway here it is:

It was a Thursday and they stopped to get a drink after leaving a truly explosive action movie (his pick). He stuck to whiskey and Lucius’ was drinking something the color of radioactive waste. 

“So you’re saying that you’re issue with them exploding a mountain with the amount they used to do it?” 

“Simple logic,” Izzy shook his head. “Any idiot with a calculator could figure- We’re in public.” 

Lucius had very abruptly and with a very intense look on his face, stuck his hand down Izzy’s front pocket. 

“Hives,” he explained. 

“Oh fuck me.” Now that he said it, Izzy became very aware of them. His hands itched and his skin had gone tight. 

“It’s my first time, so don’t judge my technique,” Lucius tried to joke, but Izzy could hear the shake in his voice. 

“It’s bulletproof,” he assured him. Fuck though, there went his throat tightening up. It would never be something he got used to. The sudden and very violent reminder that his body sometimes had its own agenda.

“Yeah, but you’re not.” Lucius flipped off the top. 

It was strange having someone else do this for him. He’d had half a dozen reactions this severe in his adult life and it had always been his own hand that saved him. Down it went and at least Lucius knew how to be firm. 

“Ever been on a date to an ER?” He asked, the words barely scraping out. 

“Unfortunately, yeah.” Lucius was fumbling with his phone. “I’ll tell you about it some other time. You concentrate on breathing. Count. Not out loud though.”

Izzy nodded. He could count. 

“Yes, I have an emergency,” he was dimly aware of Lucius saying to a 911 operator. His voice was shaking, but he was clear and careful.  

By the time the EMTs got there, the epinephrine was already working, but he knew the drill. No amount of bitching and fighting it would make it a good idea to refuse transport. He climbed in and let them hook him up, already dreading the hours of being monitored.  

Lucius sat where they directed him, and reached out, taking Izzy’s hand in his. 

“It’s going to be okay,” Lucius said. 

“I know that,” Izzy sighed. “But if you need to hear it, I’ll be fine. Always have been before.” 

“You’re covered in hives and I didn’t think it was possible, but you sound even more hoarse.” 

“Worse case, they give me more.” 

“What do you think set it off? We haven’t eaten anything since dinner at yours.” 

“Probably something at the theater.” He rewound the evening. “Arm of the seat was sticky. Could’ve been trace. Probably was. Took a while to do anything and this wasn’t bad as things go.” 

“You know for such a tough guy, your autoimmune system is a fragile little bitch.” 

One of the EMTs made a noise that was either annoyance or repressed amusement. 

“Fuck off,” Izzy huffed. 

At least it was a quiet night in the ER, and Izzy got shoved in a closet of a room relatively quickly. Monitors galore and thanks to some of his hives getting ambitious, they gave him another shot right away. The inevitable headache trotted itself out. 

“You know how to show a girl a good time,” Lucius sat down on the edge of the bed, ignoring the chair shoved in the corner.  

“Turn off the lights?” He asked.  

“Sure.” 

The darkness helped. There was still plenty of light bleeding through from the hall, but at least it wasn’t nailing him between the eyes. Lucius sat beside him again and rested a hand on his wrist. 

“Freaking out?” Izzy hazarded a guess. 

“Yes.” 

“Did I tell you about the time in Vegas?” He told Lucius all sorts of things these days.  He’d usually run them by Donna first. She was a sensible kind of therapist. Lots of confrontational questions and no tolerance for bullshit. He liked that about her even when it meant a lot talking about things he’d rather not say. 

“Not ringing a bell.”

“It was before I knew why my throat itched all the time. Knew I couldn’t do nuts, but hadn’t figured out the rest of the laundry list yet.” 

“How’d you not die?” 

“Got worse as I got older,” he shrugged. “Was on a job, don’t even remember the details. Supposed to just stand around look intimidating for some asshole to hurry a deal along.” 

“Okay,” Lucius raised a brow. 

“Fucking starving, been locked up for hours, then they gave us some bullshit salad. Whatever the one is with the egg.” 

“Cobb. Shit, you ate an entire egg?” 

“Went down hard. Managed to drag myself out of the shitbox building and called 911 laying on the fucking sidewalk. You know what was I thinking, stuck on filthy concrete, staring up at the ugliest fucking neon sign I’d ever seen?” 

“I shudder to think,”Lucius grip on his wrist tightened. 

“I was thinking, I hope I fucking die because otherwise Hornigold is going to fire me for walking out.” 

“Every new thing I hear about this guy makes me hate him more.” 

“I was right too.” He shook his head. “Spent the night in the ER, flew back the next day and he was starting in on me as I walked through the fucking door. Only got my ass saved because Herself swanned in and told him that she needed me for the next job. Was back on a plane before I put my bag down.” 

“That’s fucked.” 

“Yeah it was all fucked, but that’s not the point,” he closed his eyes against what little light was pouring in. “The point is, you can freak out, but I feel pretty fucking good about it today.” 

“You’re still in the ER,” Lucius pointed out with a half-laugh. 

“I noticed,” he rolled his eyes. “But today, I'm going home after. I’ll wake up with a bitch of a headache. And it’ll still be better than dying.” 

Lucius snorted, “Low bar if I’ve ever heard one.” 

Sometimes Izzy wondered if the man was purposely dense to fish for compliments. He was impossible. Fuck he was bad at saying nice things. It was amazing he hadn’t run Lucius off yet, but he was clawing to hold on every day. 

“Because you’re here,” he forced out. “It’s fine. Because you’re here.” 

“Iz,” Lucius breathed out. Then he shifted. “Move over.” 

It was a little hard to shuffle with the monitors beeping at them, but they managed and Lucius lay down next to him, never breaking his hold on Izzy’s wrist. They stopped talking which was better for Izzy’s head anyway. Lucius just lay next to him, holding on and that was more than enough.